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A Whole New World (of Warcraft) #9: Mozart Among the Mages

After shipping players off to a new continent and even an entirely different planet over the last couple of years, Blizzard has gone full steam ahead with the World of Warcraft: Cataclysm expansion, which brings the world's most popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game back to its roots. And then it takes those roots, grinds them up, and serves players an entirely fresh experience in the world of Azeroth. Join GameSpy columnist and WoW-head Leif Johnson as he travels through this whole new world (of Warcraft), exploring new zones, beating new dungeons, and enjoying what may turn out to be the happy medium to unite diehards and casual gamers alike.

I often wonder how Blizzard would react if I told them that watching the loading screen on the evening of November 23, 2010 was my favorite experience in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. No, not even watching -- listening -- to the loading screen. Blizzard had just released the vital "Shattering" patch a few hours before, and I quickly found myself marooned about 2,000 spots from the front of my crowded server's queue with a lengthy wait before me. Over the next hour or so, I imagined reasons for the pauses and leaps in the queue's descent. I watched as the mad dragon Deathwing's sulfuric huffing mocked my impatience over the ruined spires of Stormwind. And, most importantly, I listened. That's where Cataclysm got me.

For the uninitiated, Cataclysm's main theme erupts on the loading screen with a chaotic crash of strings evoking Deathwing's destructive Azerothian joyride, and then slides into a comfortably familiar march after two minutes of bedlam. Fellow World of Warcraft veterans know this march as the music that played for countless hours as we endured rampant queues of the game's first year. It's a score that many of us could probably recreate in full if we'd only learn how to write music, and its introduction here recalls the game's early glories.

But then the march retreats. The next cascade of notes dances around highs and lows, hinting at the Burning Crusade, glorifying the Wrath of the Lich King, and peppering each new movement with complex and stirring compositions all its own. And finally, minutes before the end of this 12-minute masterwork, the score bursts into a triumphant embellishment of the original classic theme that left me awed to silence. It was masterful. It made me want to play much more than all the months I'd spent in beta. And it made me realize that Cataclysm's most enduring legacy may very well be its music.

Three months later, I appreciate Cataclysm's soundtrack more than the game itself. I keep several tracks on my iPhone to add a dose of the epic to my daily adventures on Chicago's Green Line, and I sometimes write game reviews to the more minimalist selections. It's a pity, really; I couldn't help but hear a manifesto for Cataclysm's future in that first fevered overture, one that promised that the classic world would emerge improved from Deathwing's ashes like a vengeful phoenix. Unfortunately, Cataclysm's soundtrack now doggedly holds the standard as the game's most unassailable feature while almost every other aspect stumbles under the weight of both petty and valid complaints. I've seen players complain about Cataclysm's bold use of phasing (which changes the overall look of a particular zone), I've seen nearly everyone grumble about the new archaeology profession, and I've seen players dismiss Cataclysm as little more than a large patch -- but almost no one complains about the music. And when World of Warcraft's sound crew manages to pull off the near-impossible task of achieving a consensus among the notoriously fussy community, you know they've accomplished something special.

This achievement springs in part from the soundtrack's collaborative origins. Longtime Blizzard music-man Russell Brower headed the project as usual, and World of Warcraft veterans Derek Duke, Glenn Stafford, and Neal Acree contributed additional work. But perhaps no one defines World of Warcraft's most recent musical offering quite like newcomer David Arkenstone. Arkenstone, indeed, is a nerd's musician in the best of ways, a man who composed monumental fantasy music long before it was cool. I first stumbled across Arkenstone's music through his Celtic Book of Days album sometime in the late '90s, and couldn't get enough of it. Today, Arkenstone's work pervades throughout Cataclysm, and I'm happy to report that his work here manifests his gift for composing quality fantasy-themed music that avoids devolving into New Age kitsch. I'm especially impressed with his new music for the old zones. Take Tanaris; players once traversed this sprawling wasteland to the sound of an unremarkable ambient soundtrack, but today's visitors fight and explore under Arkenstone's magnificently haunting strains that hint of desolation, isolation, and the frailty of desert life. The experience is especially memorable at night. Elsewhere, his music for the Mulgore prairies still bears a hint of the Native American melodies of the original composition, but it now incorporates tragic elements suggestive of endangered lands and threatened ways of life.

Elsewhere, the Cataclysm soundtrack continues World of Warcraft's frequent use of dramatic musical cues to complement its most impressive locations. This is one of WoW's most influential aspects. In fact, I think I first realized that I loved WoW after an authoritative chorus hammered my senses as I trotted into the human capital of Stormwind back in open beta in 2004. The orcish capital of Orgrimmar was no different: Its savage drums warned of blood and violence in the streets, and made the simple experience of running through the city gates crackle with the energy of a gladiator entering an arena.

These moments exist in Cataclysm -- most notably in Hyjal, one of the first zones that players encounter on their final leveling stretch from 80 to 85. Immediately after you walk beneath the shadows of the giant tree Nordrassil, a stirring rush of music proclaims that Something Epic's About to Happen. In Vashj'ir, a massive underwater zone, the music begins with a subdued-though-violent note that seemingly recalls the shipwreck that initially brings you there, and settles into a lumbering march reminiscent of a massive sea monster plodding through the deep. It's rather telling that I hate Vashj'ir as a playable zone, but I count its music as one of the expansion's highlights.

Indeed, to play with your sound off is to miss the best part of Cataclysm. At its best, the new music succeeds in giving whole new perspectives on zones we've seen for six years, and even five-man dungeons like Grim Batol and the Vortex Pinnacle sport scores that rival the entire soundtracks of other games. This isn't to say, of course, that other expansions didn't have good music... but rather, that Cataclysm nudges the musical experience closer to art. Wrath of the Lich King is popularly known as a poor expansion these days (rightly or wrongly), for instance, but the music was some of the best I'd heard in the game until Cataclysm. The Ulduar instance particularly surprised raiders with fantastic music (so good, in fact, that it worms its way into unrelated events in Cataclysm), and the opening cinematic's impassioned fusion of sight and sound impressed some players more than the entire expansion. But Cataclysm's music gives the game an entirely different flavor while still honoring the classic themes. It's powerful, it's memorable, and it's enough to immerse players who are otherwise accustomed to blaring rock music in their ears. And, most importantly, it's enough to give World of Warcraft yet another important edge over other MMOs.

Some genres can afford to neglect their music, but I believe music lies at the very heart of every MMO experience. In theory, at least, the music of an MMO is far more important than a movie soundtrack could ever hope to be. We enjoy movies for maybe three hours at the most during a given sitting, but dedicated players play MMOs from day to day and from year to year, racking up embarrassing playtimes that they keep as secret as a fetish. Indeed, some of the most seasoned WoW players have probably heard the music for Stormwind or Orgrimmar more than any other single piece of music in their lives.

Such stunning immersion demands a timeless soundtrack that endures hundreds or thousands of replays, and stands its ground amid the countless ephemeral hits of a throwaway culture. Does Cataclysm's soundtrack reach these heights of perfection? Of course not. Nothing in gaming does, yet, and even Inon Zur's competent rival soundtrack for Rift falls short of World of Warcraft's memorable acrobatics with sound. But, judging from Blizzard's work here, I predict that when gaming music reaches true orchestral greatness, the music itself will come from MMOs (provided the genre survives). At the very least, I'm sure the first great entry will come from a role-playing game, massively multiplayer or not, owing to the level of immersion involved. We've seen that Blizzard can unite a rowdy bunch of gamers through music; now let's see a game composer attract the world. We've already seen gaming music win an Emmy; now let's see a gaming soundtrack reach the immortality of Grieg's "Hall of the Mountain King." The pieces are in play; now we simply need a score.

Leif Johnson is a trained medieval historian, ex-cowboy (really), and recovering academic who left his graduate studies at the University of Chicago to get a real job -- and now he writes about video games for a living. A devotee of World of Warcraft since launch day in 2004, Leif is also a former longtime member of the early world-class raiding guild Risen. Visit his blog at JeremiahLeifJohnson.com.